AVONDALE, Arizona – In her short 11 years, Harper Allgaier has only known disappointment and pain when it came to the NASCAR Xfinity championship race for her dad Justin.
Two years ago, she cried after he led late in the title race before finishing third as Ty Gibbs won the championship.
On Saturday night, Harper cried again. Tears came after she ran to her father and hugged him next to his car.
They were tears of happiness.
Allgaier had just won his first Xfinity Series championship in his seventh appearance in the title race.
“I was so happy and overwhelmed that it just happened,” Harper told NBC Sports.
I had never cried happy tears before.
“Tonight was great because I think she saw a side of me that she’d never seen before,” Allgaier told NBC Sports. “I feel like when she’s older, these are the moments that I think will really mean something to her, and it was great to be able to celebrate with her.”
Allgaier’s journey to Saturday night’s championship has been one of family with his wife Ashley and daughters Harper and Willow.
“Family is what started this sport for me,” Allgaier said of his parents Mike and Dorothy. “It’s what has sustained the sport for me. It’s what I will always come back to. They are the most important piece.
“To have them all here tonight and celebrate and be a part of it… there are no words.”
Allgaier won the championship wearing a helmet designed by Harper. She has helped design their helmets since she was 4 years old.
The first showed his handprint in pink. She had a message on the back of her helmet that said, “Get behind the wheel, Dad. Love, Harper.”
This year’s helmet featured a horseshoe, which had special meaning. Justin’s grandfather always carried a horseshoe in his pocket.
“When my grandfather passed away, we actually made a little kind of memorial sticker for my grandfather and it was literally that horseshoe, and I wore it on all my race cars,” Justin said before the helmet’s playoff debut. “…(Harper) knows my relationship with my grandfather, how much he meant to me and my athletic career and how much I miss him.”
Harper continued the tradition of putting a message on his father’s helmet. This year she added her little sister, Willow, 3.
The message:
It’s your lucky year. Have fun and win some races! I love Harper and Willow
But it looked like this year’s race would also end in disappointment for Allgaier and his daughter.
Allgaier crashed in Friday practice after just three laps when another competitor’s failed engine put fluid on the track and caused several cars to slide into the wall. Allgaier had to go to a backup car, forcing him to start at the back of the 38-car field on Saturday.
Allgaier’s title chances appeared to be over after he was penalized for a restart violation on lap 100 and then penalized for speeding on pit road while serving the first penalty. He fell to 35th place.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who owns the JR Motorsports team with his sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller and Rick Hendrick that Allgaier drives for, can relate to what Harper has been through in the past.
As Earnhardt held an 8-foot flagpole with the champion’s banner, the 50-year-old was transported back in time to 40 years ago and the memory of his father racing at Bristol.
“Dad was leading the race,” Earnhardt said. “Something happened where he turned around on the frontstretch and spun. He was sitting on top of a pickup truck, in the center of the race track in the field. I could see it turning and I said, ‘Okay,’ but its tires were flat and it couldn’t get going and they spun it.
“I was old enough to realize what was happening and my heart was very broken. … It marked me.”
Harper wouldn’t suffer so much tonight.
The race changed when Anthony Alfredo crashed and brought out the yellow flag 45 laps into the scheduled distance. It came in the middle of a green flag pit cycle, allowing Allgaier to get back on the lead lap.
Allgaier moved up the order and finished second behind Riley Herbst, who was not competing for a championship, in overtime. Allgaier was the title contender with the highest score.
Allgaier was a champion.
And a daughter couldn’t get to her father fast enough.